From this spot the old castle of Tel Afer, standing boldly on an eminence about ten miles distant, was plainly visible. Continuing our march we reached, towards evening, a group of mounds known as Tel Jemal, and pitched in the midst of them on a green lawn, enamelled with flowers, that furnished a carpet for our tents unequalled in softness of texture, or in richness of color, by the looms of Cashmere. The tents had scarcely been raised when a party of horsemen were seen coming towards us. As they approached our encampment they played the Jerid with their long spears, galloping to and fro on their well-trained mares. They were the principal inhabitants of Tel Afer with Ozair Agha, their chief, who brought us a present of lambs, flour, and fresh vegetables. The Agha rode on a light chestnut mare of beautiful proportions and rare breed. His dress, as well as that of his followers, was singularly picturesque. His people are Turcomans, a solitary colony in the midst of the desert; and although their connection with the Bedouins has taught them the tongue and the habits of the wandering tribes, yet they still wear the turban of many folds, and the gay flowing robes of their ancestors. They allow their hair to grow long, and to fall in curls on their shoulders. As the evening crept on, I watched from the highest mound the sun as it gradually sank in unclouded splendor below the sea-like expanse before me. On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, rose the grass-covered heaps marking the site of ancient habitations. The great tide of civilisation had long since ebbed, leaving these scattered wrecks on the solitary shore. Are those waters to flow again, bearing back the seeds of knowledge and of wealth that they have wafted to the West? We wanderers were seeking what they had left behind, as children gather up the colored shells on the deserted sands. At my feet there was a busy scene, making more lonely the unbroken solitude which reigned in the vast plain around, where the only thing having life or motion were the shadows of the lofty mounds as they lengthened before the declining sun. Above three years before, when, watching the approach of night from the old castle of Tel Afer, I had counted nearly one hundred ruins[109], now, when in the midst of them, no less than double that number were seen from Tel Jemal. Our tents crowning the lip of a natural amphitheatre bright with flowers, Ozair Agha and his Turcomans seated on the greensward in earnest talk with the Arab chief, the horses picketed in the long grass, the Bedouins driving home their camels for the night's rest, the servants and grooms busied with their various labors; such was the foreground to a picture of perfect calm and stillness. In the distance was the long range of the Sinjar hills, furrowed with countless ravines, each marked by a dark purple shadow, gradually melting into the evening haze.